Note 79 — Chapter II

Footnote 79:

(return)

The Christological utterances which are found in the New Testament writings, so far as they explain and paraphrase the confession of Jesus as the Christ and the Lord, may be almost entirely deduced from one or other of the four points mentioned in the text. But we must at the same time insist that these declarations were meant to be explanations of the confession that "Jesus is the Lord," which of course included the recognition that Jesus by the resurrection became a heavenly being (see Weizsäcker in above mentioned work, p. 110) The solemn protestation of Paul, 1 Cor. XII. 3 διο γνωριζο 'υμιν 'οτι ουδεις εν πνευματι θεου λαλων λεγει ΑΝΑΘΕΜΑ ΙΗΣΟΥΣ, και ουδεις δυναται ειπειν ΚΥΡΙΟΣ ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ει μη εν πνευματι 'αγιω (cf. Rom. X. 9), shews that he who acknowledged Jesus as the Lord, and accordingly believed in the resurrection of Jesus, was regarded as a full-born Christian. It undoubtedly excludes from the Apostolic age the independent authority of any christological dogma besides that confession and the worship of Christ connected with it. It is worth notice, however, that those early Christian men who recognised Christianity as the vanquishing of the Old Testament religion (Paul, the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, John) all held that Christ was a being who had come down from heaven.